Steadfast and On
by Estoma
Summary: Clove will not let anything prevent her from seeing Cato crowned victor. 74th Games AU. Entry for a couple of challenges at Caesar's Palace forum.


**Author's note: For Ray, for the 2014 Gift Giving Extravaganza. Using the prompt 'forest', and in answer to the challenge 'Challenge: The character has a mental breakdown' both from Caesar's Palace Forum. 74th Games AU. **

Twisting, finding a tangled path through the interlocked boughs of the pine trees, the shaft of sunlight arrowed to the ground. It was a rare occurrence, made all the more beautiful for its scarcity, like the tiny mountain asters that grew, white, purple and cream, in the south facing dells of the Granite Hills. As those tiny, brave flowers added life and cheer to the drear, rocky slopes, everything caught in the shaft of sunshine took on a new dimension. The fragrant carpet of pine needles looked like a pool of molten gold and the girl poised in it looked sit to stand upon such a luxurious plinth. It was as if a sheer veil of wrought gold were drawn across her form and flecks of light caught in her dark hair, played across her forehead. She looked half a forest nymph, or a goddess fit to launch thousands upon thousands of ships towards unknown shores and far away graves.

Then, like a spotlight turning from centre stage, the vision ceased as the girl stepped back into the dim green of the pine forest. Once again she was just a girl, with the good, strong jaw characteristic of District 2 and nothing but pine needles twisted in her hair. Eight years at the training academy in Marble had given her hard, lean muscles and pared the roundness from her cheeks and her belly. A sheath of knives rode around her hips and there was the imprint of another tucked in her solid boots. Turning on her heel, she shook her hair impatiently; instead of twisted in a practical knot at the back of her neck, it was loose to her shoulders, nearly covered the stain of congealed blood at her temple.

"What are you staring at, huh?"

Mimicking her gesture, the boy shook his head as if to clear the remnants of the golden enchantment. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to gazing into the forest gloom. In contrast to his companion, his posture was not tense and ready; there was a tired slump to his shoulders that had not been there when he stood in front of fifty thousand children packed into the square and took to the stage. Nearly two weeks in the arena had taken their toll.

"I dunno," he muttered, "you looked like you had a crown on already."

A harsh bark, Clove's laugh cut through the trees. A hundred yards away, a red fox paused and cocked her dainty ears. Sniffing the air, she paused with one forelimb poised off the ground. When all grew quiet once more, she continued back towards her den among the bracken and fallen logs. The vixen's mother and grandmother had roamed the same pine forest years before the site was selected to become a killing field but she herself would not live to see parties of Capitol tourists traverse the woods, to gape at the blood-soaked ground. Silvery-invisible in the gloom, the forgotten snare slipped over the fox's neck and her struggles and calls for help only hastened the inevitable. Somewhere amongst the bracken a litter of cubs faced a cold, hungry wait until they, too young to fend for themselves, succumbed to a slower fate than their damn.

Cato and Clove paused, both turning toward the sharp yelp. After a moment, Clove shook her head and dismissed it; not a tribute, nor a mutt.

"That's one of the silliest things you've ever said," she snorted.

"You did."

"_You_ will," she sighed. Glancing over her shoulder, she shot Cato a peculiar look; her dark brows drew together as if in anger, but the sad lines around her mouth gave a better clue to her feelings. "Come on, then."

Soundlessly, Clove led the way through the twisting trees, never faltering. Constantly she looked from side to side and her hand was never far from the knives at her belt. Cato followed. The soft carpet of needles made even his heavy progress barely noticeable, but he could not match Clove's cat-like grace. It was curious; she'd never been very good at woodcraft when they studied together at the academy, but now she moved as if the forest was her home, as if she was one of the silent woodland creatures that moved on the edge of sight. Cato feared she might just melt, like an elusive sprite, back into the trees.

Soon, the light began to fade, but not before one last fiery show. The gamemakers could not content themselves with nature's own most beautiful display. Instead of a sunset of mauves and soft oranges, with just a hint of dusky red, the affair was all together more violent. Shafts of fierce yellow and aquamarine pierced through the trees like spears flung from the hand of mighty Ares, or Zeus himself. The liquid golden orb itself, riding low on the horizon, was outlined in a gyrating ring of fierce violet, too bright and painful to look at. Shifting patterns moved over the undersides of the clouds in a thousand variation, some of which even contained words; the names of those rich enough to pay for them to be splashed across the sky.

"Show offs," Clove snorted. "Come on, you're bloody slow today."

"Leave off," Cato muttered. Bracing his hands on the straps of his pack, he leaned forwards into the weight and force his weary legs to catch up to Clove. She waited, hands on hips, for his dragging steps. Slowly, day be day, the arena had taken its toll on Cato's spirit and his body. The tracker sting in the hollow of his neck throbbed painfully; a hard and swollen lump. Nothing from the cornucopia had helped, and his mentors had sent only gifts of food. Clove said that the gamemakers were probably blocking them.

Rapidly, the light began to leech from the forest as the fiery sunset faded. Ahead, Clove's form grew shadowy. For a moment, he lost sight of her and Cato let out an involuntary cry. Once again, the girl turned around, but this time her tone was uncharacteristically soft and she walked back slowly.

"You're tired." She laid a hand on his shoulder, slipped the strap of his pack free and onto her own. Cato rolled his shoulders wearily. "Come on, we'll stop for now."

Smoke rose in a twisting column, but the boughs of the pine trees soon baffled and broke it up. The few sparks it gave off as a stick collapsed did not rise high enough to be seen. Around the fire, the rest of the forest seemed darker for the small prick of light in the eerie twilight. With his back to a tree, Cato stretched his stiff legs and let his head rest against the bark. It was not a comfortable place to rest, but Cato's eyelids were heavy none the less. He did not intend to sleep, but when he opened his eyes he was alone in the clearing. A heavy silence had settled over the forest and Cato's frantic breathing was loud in his ears.

"Clove? Clove!" His voice cracked.

"Calm down." Laughing, she scrambled up the slope from the stream, a bottle of water in her hand. She offered it to him.

"I thought you were gone," the boy muttered sheepishly.

Clove knelt to pull a sleeping bag from Cato's pack and tossed it to him. "Get warm; you're shivering. And I'm not going anywhere." Under her breath, she added, "At least until you win." Her face was sad as she continued unpacking and joined Cato. He tore into a loaf of the good, flat bread they favoured in the mountains of District 2, but she didn't touch anything.

"I'll watch first," she said.

"Wake me up, okay?" Cato stifled a yawn.

"Sure." Clove settled down, her hand poised over her belt. She smiled sadly and shook her head, for when she looked at the way the tense lines on Cato's face smoothed out in sleep, she knew she would not wake him to share the cold watch.

High in the canopy, the birds woke to call to each other, of the small windfalls and tragedies of their lives. A snake had taken two of the wren's eggs during the night, but the blue jay's chicks were ready to take to the crisp morning air for the first time. Cato and Clove were already moving, dispelling the faint early morning mist that curled around the trunks of the trees. This time, Clove walked by Cato's side as he worked the cold stiffness from his limbs; it had been a chill night, and Clove cuddled beside him did little. If she noticed his pace was slower, she said nothing but often glanced up at his face. Cato kept his eyes down on the ground, watching his feet.

"Hey," she punched his arm lightly, "you must be getting close to Firegirl. The gamemakers would have turned you if you were going the wrong way."

"Yeah."

"Come on," Clove prompted, "you'll be home in a day or two."

Frowning, Cato let her comment pass as he dragged his feet. The temperature was already rising, burning off the morning fog but Cato's movements were cold and brittle. Despite the generous sponsorship gifts, mostly food, he was losing weight. The four kills to his name ate away at his gut, but there was something else, too. Like a paint shadow on the edge of sight, as the light flickers on; one after the other, two canon blasts echoed around Cato's mind.

Yesterday was the Feast. Cato's heart raced in remembrance of the frantic sprint towards the golden horn where he could barely see Clove crumped on the grass. Firegirl staggered off into the trees, clutching her forehead but Cato thought nothing of letting her go. By the time he reached the horn, Clove lay like a dropped doll and Thresh pressed his hands to the knife she'd embedded in his guts. The job was finished as Cato's sword bit deeply into the dark boy's back. Two canons sounded, echoing like a bell, inside the golden horn. But Cato did not notice. On his knees, Clove's hand clutched in his own, he begged her to open her eyes as the first tears he had cried in the arena came to his eyes. Time passed, and a hovercraft stirred the grass but he didn't look up.

"Hey! Firegirl's getting a good start on you," Clove had snapped, arms folded over her chest. Cato blinked, then scrambled to his feet and ran to her as the hovercraft collected the dead. It was only at her urging that he followed her to look for Katniss' trail into the pines.

As morning wore on, the terrain changed. Clove led the way down to the stream as the banks dropped away. The course was choked with rounded, grey boulders and sickly green weed snaked over everything, at times concealing the water all together. The boy stumbled over the vines that caught his legs like snares, startling the fish that kept pace in the sluggish current with their muscular bodies swaying. Soon, he could only concentrate on Clove's back as she navigated the boulders with ease. Brutus warned him, back at the academy, and again in the luxurious tribute tower; don't stumble at the fucking finish line. But now, Cato could barely lift his feet.

Then, when the sun was low and the rays slanted into their eyes whichever way they looked, Clove halted. When she turned to look at Cato, her smile showed too many teeth. Mud, exposed to the sun, had dried and cracked in the heat and the weeds were withered and snapped. The patch of ground told its own story, as did the set of flaking footprints straggling up and away from the stream. Like a hound that has finally caught the scent, Cato lifted his head and shaded his eyes against the sun's glare. Unconsciously, his fingers closed around the hilt of his sword and Clove nodded approvingly. Her eyes looked a little sad, though; a child at the end of a picnic, not quite ready to go home. But Cato missed her solemn expression, for his training took over and the mantras he had learnt and the exercises drilled into his body flooded back. The weariness fled his limbs and he took the lead.

A fragile shield, the vines over the entrance of the cave parted with a soft sigh before Cato's sword. They looked like dead snakes on the rocks. Tiger-footed, he'd crept up to the cave without a sound, for the rocky terrain was much like the broken foothills of the Granite Hills, where he played as a child. The girl in the cave heard him, a second, a minute, an eternity too late and filled the cave with a gut-wrenching scream. In a lightening flash of understanding, they both knew that she could not reach her bow in time, but to her credit, the wiry girl from District 12 still tried. Another slash of Cato's sword parted her reaching hand from her wrist and her loved screamed his anguish as he struggled to rise on his newly healed leg. One more cut ended her suffering, but began Peeta's in earnest.

"Bastard!" the boy screamed as his leg gave way beneath him. "She _deserved_ to go home!"

"Save it," Clove snapped. Like a shadow, she moved up next to Cato and laid a hand on his shoulder. "You're nearly there. Come on."

"I…I can't." Cato's sword hung limp from his hand. It had been ripped from Katniss' body as she fell. He gazed past the point resting in the dirt, to Peeta, with the dead girl's head cradled tenderly in his lap. The boy had his eyes closed, but his thumb stroked the tender piece of skin by Katniss' lips, smearing blood over the both of them. A sudden, brutal memory swept back into Cato's mind; he held Clove like that at the Feast, the echo of her canon still resounding in his ears. "I can't."

"Kill me, then," Peeta said tearfully. "Go on. I d-don't want to go home without-without her."

"I don't either…"

"Cato, for fuck's sake, you're nearly there." Her voice lacked its usual fire, though, and her movements were slow as she took the blade from Cato's limp fingers. "I don't want to go, either, but there isn't a choice."

Peeta's eyes were tight shut, but the tension in his body was ever. He let out just one choked sob before the blade sliced down, cutting through the tendons and bone of his neck in a macabre execution. Cato stumbled away from the blood and out into the harsh sunset as the last canon brought a shower of pebbles raining from the cave. A moment later the trumpets blared out.

"May I present, the winner of the 74th Annual Hunger Games: from District 2, Cato Sanson!"

"Clove?" he called, looking frantically back over his shoulder. Shakily, she raised a hand to him as she stood in the mouth of the cave, over the bodies of the two lovers. Her eyes were overbright as she shook her head and pressed a finger to her lips. As the ladder descended from the hovercraft, her image was already fading from Cato's sight.


End file.
